1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and image processing method, and more particularly, to an image processing apparatus and image processing method used for diagnosis and the like of living tissue.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in order to help identify a lesion (abnormal area) in images picked up of living tissue in a body cavity using an endoscope and the like, studies have been conducted on image processing for detecting a running pattern of submucosal blood vessels and/or a predetermined structure and the like of epithelial tissue in the images.
For example, image processing disclosed by Alejandro F. Frangi, Wiro J. Niessen, Koen L. Vincken and Max A. Viergever: “Multiscale Vessel Enhancement Filtering”, LNCS, vol. 1496, Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany, pp. 130-137 involves modeling a linear structure by means of eigenvalues obtained through computations using a Hesse matrix, calculating a predetermined evaluation value using the eigenvalues, and enhancing a linear structure contained in an image according to a magnitude of the predetermined evaluation value.